


Entangle and Diffuse

by SincerelyChaos



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, First Kiss, First Time, Implied Consent, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Sexual Content, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 17:09:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3818314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SincerelyChaos/pseuds/SincerelyChaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock finds that he wants to see exactly how entangled two bodies could be, and John laughs against his lips as Sherlock entwines their fingers and attempts to tangle their legs even more. </p><p>They’re a mess of limbs on the cold and dirty balcony floor, and Sherlock figures that they’re a mess in so many other ways as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entangle and Diffuse

**Author's Note:**

> Something that began in my mind when I was blinded by spring sunlight and listening to Bright Eyes 'Loose Leaves' and a few of their other songs during a day when I had decided not to write one single word. I did, though.
> 
> Thank you iriswallpaper for beta'ing and all those encouraging words you offer, which I often find hard to believe, but still always makes me smile.
> 
> * * *
> 
> At the Wits on Tap 2015 challange, iamjohnlocked4life made the most beautiful remix of this fic;  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/3874243  
> \- Read it; it's stunning!

It’s not possible to live if your veins are filled with resin instead of blood, but then there are many things that ought to be impossible that are in fact happening, so Sherlock isn’t too bothered by this impossibility. His own blood has been replaced with resin for weeks on end, but it doesn’t really matter, because right now his blood is blood again and he can bleed and his limbs are tingling and he is very and intensely alive.

And it’s spring now, and that’s when this sort of thing usually happens, but he can’t see that pattern right now; he’s too busy living, breathing and making up for all the time spent sleepwalking.

 

His heart is beating painfully fast and his breathing is more gasp than breath. He’s been running all the way to the schoolyard, except when he balanced on the railing by the sidewalk a few blocks ago. Balance is important, they say. But they say so much, and it’s impossible to listen to it all. They will never understand how it feels when resin is finally replaced with mercury and his thoughts goes from sticky and viscous to razor-sharp and volatile. He has tried to explain, but all it got him was worried looks from his parents and visits to a doctor that was easy to deduce, but who missed everything important about Sherlock. Instead of listening to someone who says that the way his thoughts works when they are like this - like mercury - is disordered he’s chosen to run to the schoolyard and the sunlight; to a boy who’s somewhere inside that yellow building. It’s crucial for Sherlock to see that boy right at this very moment, because there’s a pressure building up inside of him, and his bones vibrate inside his body. He doesn’t have any logical reason as to why he has to see this boy, really, except for the fact that life’s short and then you die, and if that isn’t a reason then there really are no valid reasons for anything.

 

 

_“I don’t understand, you know,” his mother had said a few nights ago. He’d been too tired to be intractable that night, and had allowed her to stroke the short hairs on his left temple while the longer hairs on his right temple fell against her shoulder. The resin days had turned into resin weeks and the touch against his hair had made him feel... something. It resembled a hint of emotion he’d almost forgotten that he was capable of experiencing, and it hurt._

  _“Neither do I,” he’d finally managed, still limp against her side._

  _Saying it no longer felt like weakness; it just felt like admitting what they’d all known for years, but never spoke of._

 

 

It’s just how things are; some days everything’s faster and more alive. His mother would say that he’s the one who’s faster, not the days, but he isn’t sure about that. In the end, he’s only making up for the time he’s lost during all those days when nothing except for the dust in the air would move. During those days of resin it would seemed to him like time was stuck, and on days like today things would finally move and his thoughts were once again divergent, animate and moving in mercury speed, slippery and volatile. His senses would absorb everything, but it didn’t hurt like it did during the slow days, when everything got stuck in his bloodstream and it was like his heart pumped resin instead of blood into his veins.

He generally thinks more about death than he does about life, but today’s one of those days where life seems to make sense, at least in the moment he’s in right now; breathing fast after running all the way to the schoolyard, a place where he hasn’t set his foot for several days, or perhaps it’s even been weeks. Time moves differently when he’s like this, so it’s hard to be quite sure, but then one can seldom be sure of anything.

 

He’s up the stairs, and through corridors that are as empty and lifeless as his mind had been just yesterday, and suddenly it seems even more vital to do what he's decided he needs to do. This school - with corridors where even the air seemed unwilling to move and make room for his own pulse and vibration - is no place for John, who’s to be considered rather normal (compared to himself, at least) but who’s tolerable, light and who wants to join Doctors Without Borders and save the world. No, John shouldn’t be here, and he shouldn’t be at home either. He’d never tell, but Sherlock knows that alcoholism isn’t just one of the things John’s protesting against, no; it’s more than that, and it shouldn’t have to be. Still, it seems to be something that’s made John ‘not boring’, which is a rare thing to be, and perhaps that should account for something.

John believes in many things, humanity, respect and activism, and that’s how they’d met. John arranges protests because he believes in the causes, and Sherlock joins the causes because he believes in protesting. And then he started to believe in making John smile every now and then, because they haven’t met very often, but he’s managed to cause a few smiles, and those smiles had made the resin in him a bit less viscous. John wants Sherlock to believe in things, but Sherlock finds it hard to believe in anything other than the certainty of death and decomposition most of the time. Believing in the sincerity of John’s smiles, when they are directed at him, is even harder, but it's not impossible, it seems.

 

It’s a kind of protest against the dulling of John’s mind when Sherlock knocks on the classroom door and delivers a lie about how the secretary wants John to call home instantly, and John sees right through the lie but plays along anyway, which just goes to show how brilliant John is. John makes his way out of the classroom with his gaze focused on Sherlock and together they hurry down the stairs and out from a building where the air isn’t moving.

 

With the brick wall against their backs they hide between bushes and the gymnasium to ensure that John isn’t seen from any of the windows. Sherlock’s arms are tingling and John is looking at him like he expecting some sort of explanation. 

“So what is this all about, then?”

“I need you for an experiment.”

It’s the first thing Sherlock’s able to come up with, and it’s true, it was just not what he’d intended to say. Unfortunately he has forgotten everything about what he’d been planning to say. It doesn’t matter, though, because John’s looking intrigued, and that’s really all that matters right now.

“What kind of experiment?”

John says it like it’s the most normal request in the world. And perhaps it is, Sherlock just can’t remember what’s considered to be normal anymore. He usually can't remember such things when his limbs are tingling and vibrating like this.

"I want to know if enhanced oxytocin levels in my brain will cause the tingling in my extremities to decrease without disrupting my current mercury blood flow."

John looks like sunlight and tingling at that moment, so the suggested experiment might prove to add to the tingling instead of decreasing it, but then the scientific methods Sherlock intends to use is too fascinating not to be tested.

“What are you suggesting?”

“We could either strip off all our clothes and make out, or we could, I don’t know, talk? Kissing would be preferable in terms of oxytocin release.”

And John, who wants to be a responsible doctor, just laughs and asks Sherlock if he’s on something.

“Only the same thing that you want to be on.”

“I don’t want to be on anything,” John says and perhaps John could actually end world hunger, but Sherlock suddenly finds himself hungry for the first time in days.

“You do. You crave it like someone craves air while being suffocated. You’re an adrenaline junkie, and I got your shit, I can be your dealer.”

And with that, the issue seems to be resolved, because Sherlock can feel John’s laugh against his lips and the hunger doesn’t stop, but he’s alright with that.

 

The sunlight’s obscured by the tall school building, and the shadow makes things shivery and cold, but Sherlock doesn’t need the sunlight to feel warm right now. There are more kisses and it feels nothing like resin, and Sherlock wants more and John probably do too, because suddenly they’re on their way to an old house a few blocks away. The yard’s half full of trash and old, broken furniture, but there’s a balcony on the second story from which you can see an old playground. And it’s possible reach the balcony if they climb from the garden shed beside the house, so they do, and the balcony is half filled with old belongings, but there’s an old blanket and space enough to sit on the dirty floor.

“Aren’t you going to ask if we’ve just been breaking and entering?”

John’s question’s probably meant to sound concerned, but John’s face is all adrenaline, shy smiles and dilated blood vessels, which causes his cheeks to flush in a way that makes him look very young, very much alive and nothing at all like things that are slow and resin-like. John must be the antithesis of resin, Sherlock realises.

“I don’t mind,” is all Sherlock’s got to say, but that answers more than one question, and he wonders if John can hear that.

“So how’s the tingling?”

Sherlock looks down his arms and his hands. His black nailpolish is beginning to flake, and yes; it still tingles under his skin and vibrates in his bone marrow.

“It’s still there.”

“And the acid blood flow?”

“The mercury blood flow,” Sherlock corrects. “Yes, it’s still there as well.”

“But are you… are you okay?” John asks, inquiringly.

And Sherlock could perhaps attempt to answer that, but he’s hesitant to do so. Right now the energy, the tingling and the flooding in his bloodstream are concentrated and intense. If he lets it out through his words it’ll most likely dissolve into the air and be diluted. And diluted energy will in extension lead to time moving slower again, and Sherlock doesn’t want that. He wants this moment to last, but he doesn’t want it to be slow like dust-filled air or clock’s that’s moving backwards. Things are more real when they’re not slow, and everything’s slow when his mind decides to be slow and viscerous.

“You’re a pacifist, you come from a home full of broken glass bottles and you want to be a doctor and save the world. I consist of resin most of the time, but right now I don’t, and you can do anything you want with me, as long as it doesn't make everything feel like a haze again.”

At this John looks rather more worried than reassured, and Sherlock realises that he has to start over again.

“I don’t mean that you have to do anything at all with me, I just meant that I don’t think there are many things I would mind if you did.”

“I would mind if you ever did something with me that you didn’t want to.”

And that statement was hopeful in so many ways that it caused Sherlock to suck in his breath sharply. When he lets it out he realises that John’s close enough to help him breathe, and he desperately wants to have some of John’s air. He closes the last inch and press against John’s lips.

Sherlock is used to holding his distance, but right now he has no distance. It’s all lips and fingers fumbling over another body and so many points of connection between them. There’s no need for distance, because this proximity isn't an invasion. No, wait, that isn't true; it’s benign and pacifistic, but it’s without a doubt an invasion. Sherlock finds that he quite enjoys invasions, especially those who uses oxytocin as a chemical warfare. He could surrender to this, and Sherlock is someone who surrenders to very few things.

 

 

_“You should try this with someone you actually like,” Irene had said when they had parted, both hungry for air._

_“There isn’t anyone to like,” he’d countered, feeling his lips still pulsing. “And besides, it would hardly make any difference when it comes to the sensations.”_

_“Sometimes you are just so ignorant,” she’d said, biting her lip to keep a smile from her face, and she’s one of the few people he can stand in school, but at that moment he’d found her to be just as dull and intrusive as everyone else._

 

 

Clouds covers the sun and it’s suddenly chilly on the shaded balcony, but Sherlock doesn’t even notice, because he can feel the warmth of John as their bodies twists and become a tangle. Sherlock wonders if it’s possible to live entangled with another human being. There seems to be some evidence to support that theory, he gathers as he slides his tongue inside John’s mouth.

Sherlock finds that he wants to see exactly how entangled two bodies could be, and John laughs against his lips as Sherlock entwines their fingers and attempts to tangle their legs even more. They’re a mess of limbs on the cold and dirty balcony floor, and they’re a mess in so many other ways as well. It doesn’t stop them from disturbing the patterns that others have enforced on them, and it doesn’t stop them from exceeding all expectations they’ve formed themselves. There’s too much resin and too little tangle in the world, Sherlock notices. If they keep kissing and entangling, then perhaps that could change. John wants to change things, and he wants to save the world, and Sherlock’s found that he wouldn’t mind being saved himself.

John rolls on top of Sherlock and holds his face in his hands, and the weight of someone who wants to save the world ought to be heavier, but John isn’t heavy. He’s just heavy enough to release more oxytocin and more endorphins and more of something else, something that makes Sherlock rock his body against John’s. John kisses him almost gently, but Sherlock feels more invaded than ever when John’s tongue plays with his own and John’s thumbs strokes his cheeks. He’s surprised to find that his own hands are adding to the tangle by knotting in John’s homecut and uneven hair, which feels sun bleached and warm even in the shade.

Fingers find their way into clothes, making them shiver from the cold against warm skin. It goes further, and Sherlock’s never done this before, but how hard could it be? Boring people, stupid people did this every day, and John and Sherlock are neither stupid or boring; they are tingling and tangling and brilliant, so this must be brilliant too.

His hoodie and his t-shirt end up in a heap by the balcony door and he makes sure that John’s clothes joins them, because even their clothes should tangle and entwine, and perhaps if they can’t untangle their clothes they will have to stay like this. Sherlock can feel John’s heartbeats through their ribcages and John’s breathing is in tandem with his own as John tastes his clavicles and licks his nipples. This won’t help with the tingling. The tingling really won’t stop, it just increases, but so does that pool of warm liquid in his belly and that counteracts any discomfort pretty efficiently.

 

“What do you want us to…? I don’t have anything with me…” 

John’s voice is hoarse, and that makes Sherlock wonder if a voice can be sun bleached too. There doesn’t seem to be any sun at the balcony anymore, but it feels like something is burning his skin, so perhaps he’s mistaken.

“You can fuck me without anything if you want to. I wouldn’t mind that, I think.”

Once again it seems like he’s said something that caused John to worry, and Sherlock tries to backtrack his words, but the words are all in a jumble in his head. That tends to happen when he’s fast, sharp and has the tingles, but he also tends not to care since he’s also out of the resin haze and can the clocks’ stopped to pace backwards.

“Are you high on oxytocin or something? Do you really think I’d do that?”

Sherlock shrugs, because he doesn’t know what John would do. He seldom understands why people do what they do, and John is more sensible than most, but he’s still not seeing what Sherlock sees. Sherlock sees the flaky white paint on the ceiling of the filthy balcony, he sees the clouded sky beyond the ceiling and he sees how John looks when he’s talking about the importance of free school meals and social justice. And because he sees these things he knows that it doesn’t really matter how they do this, as long as they don’t have to untangle and rearrange themselves into someone else’s pattern.

 

 

_“I am only asking you to consider medication, Mrs. Holmes. A carefully tested medication could give him a better chance to live up to the expectations one has on a sixteen year old of his astonishing intellectual capacity.”_

_His own breathing almost drowned out the conversation on the other side of the door, but Sherlock was still able to make out their words._

_“I will take it under consideration, Doctor Jones, as I already have done several times. I don’t want him to hurt like this, I really don’t, but the thought of altering anything about him and the way he thinks… It’s just not that easy for me. I know you say that he is not likely to grow out of it, but perhaps this time it will not be as bad as before. Perhaps it will become less frequent and less intense if we just give it time.”_

 

 

“I’d never do that, you idiot,” John says, stroking Sherlock’s cheekbone and looking right into his eyes. And John’s upper body is not even pressing against Sherlock’s at the moment, but still it becomes hard to breathe.

“We don’t have to do anything, you know. There isn’t anything that we have to do, and you’ve already made sure that I’m not doing what I should be doing at this hour, so there’s that.”

That’s worth a smile, and Sherlock doesn’t even try to conceal it. They tangle back into each other as John’s weight and John’s lips are once again on Sherlock, and Sherlock can swear that there’s sunlight streaming through his closed eyelids. As he opens his eyes he’s blinded by the light that’s found its way through the planks of the railing. He instantly closes his eyes again, overwhelmed by the significance and the intensity of the sunlight that’s just slid through the clouds and the railing just to reach him.

He isn’t quite aware that his hand has found its way into John’s pants, but apparently it has, because his left hand’s now holding onto something warm and pulsing, and John’s moaning into his neck. It’s a curious feeling, making John react like this, and the tingling under his own skin is suddenly not so insistent. He wants to see if he can make John sound like that again. The sunlight’s once again obscured, but they doesn’t need it anymore; he’s already decoded the message and John’s still the antithesis of resin and backwards clocks.

 

John hit his head on a watering pot and Sherlock’s arm gets scratched against the wooden railing, but they manages to get the last of their clothes off without untangling themselves. The vibrations that usually settles in Sherlock’s bones during mercury days is now migrating to his palms and the soles of his feet, and he needs to touch John to see if the vibrations will procreate into him. Then John would know what it feels like, and he won’t have to look so worried when Sherlock mentions the tingling and the vibrations. If he could diffuse the vibrations into John’s blood Sherlock would no longer be the only one who was moving like mercury in a world that’s settled with dust and resin. John would be there with him and see everything just as sharp and clear as Sherlock does. They would be in a constant tangle of limbs and minds, ignoring anything that wasn’t as real and intense as this. It would be almost like not being alone.

 

 

_“Brother mine, please forgive me for saying so, but you’re not stable enough to make such decisions. Even Mummy has reached the conclusion that you need help; in this case pharmacological help. You’re mind is not balanced, and you can’t seem to master that kind of biological imbalance alone. Do you hear me?”_

 

 

He isn’t alone in breathing ragged breaths and fumbling with his hands. John’s hand has found Sherlock’s cock and it’s like diffusion; their hands and mouths forms a circuit as they both hold onto each other like this while their mouths are mashed together. They’ll never come untied, not really, not when they’ve been diffused like this, it’s irreversible. 

Sherlock’s stomach is also tied up now, it’s probably doing makramé if the sensation is any indication. There’s a pressure building and he needs John’s hand and he needs the weight of John’s body to make it all dissolve.

There’s a cry as something fragments inside, and it must be his cry, because John’s mouth is swallowing the sounds and Sherlock keeps filling it up again. Things get blurry and the vibrations are everywhere until he gets back to himself, to the balcony, to obscured sunlight, mercury thoughts, John and hot liquid on his stomach. His hand is still stroking and pulling at John, but he must have lost some of the rhythm as he fell into the vibrations, because now John’s hand is encircling his, pressing it firmer against the leaking cock as John thrusts into their joined hands. When John comes, Sherlock gets to see it all, gets to watch something that must be dissolving as John’s face turns focused and distant at the same time.

If nothing else diffuses, at least their sperm does as it smears and blends into their skin. John slumps onto Sherlock, and Sherlock untangles his hand from John’s just long enough to free it from where it’s squeezed between their bodies. John’s hand follows his, and once again it’s almost like not being alone, Sherlock notices as he entwined their fingers once more.

 

Tomorrow Sherlock might wake up to the haze again, but that’s then and now’s now. And right now he’s on a balcony filled with trash, together with a boy who’s currently insane enough to experiment with neurotransmitters and kisses and who would rather freeze with him than to leave and have to go their separate ways. This might just be a deviation, and John might come to his senses, but Sherlock’s been assured by professionals that he will never come to his.

And if he begins to think about death and dying again he can always think about diffusion instead. Perhaps he’ll be less inclined to imagine dying then, because this is really the opposite of dying, and if this is what it’s like to be alive, then perhaps living isn’t so bad.

 

Sherlock will not be mercury thoughts and tingles forever, and if he was, he’d probably be put away somewhere, since these things tends to ‘get out of hand’ as his brother puts it. He personally doesn’t mind being out of hand and he has several hands at the moment, if you count the ones he’s holding on to, entwining his fingers and causing some kind of unknown diffusion.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Entangled In You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3874243) by [IamJohnLocked4life](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamJohnLocked4life/pseuds/IamJohnLocked4life)




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